This week’s edition of The Assist is our Easter survival guide, designed to help you pick out the games you need to follow on your favourite football app and the best games to watch over the next few days. We also have something for Real Madrid fans to cling on to in the Spanish title race, and news of a newly formed club side in Canada.
Man City vs. Liverpool
We’ve reached the quarterfinals stage in the FA Cup and the headline tie falls first as Liverpool travel to Manchester City on Saturday lunchtime. City have won both meetings between the two in the league this season, by an aggregate scoreline of 5-1, and Pep Guardiola’s dreams of a domestic treble are still just about alive.
The Carabao Cup is already in the bag and now it’s time to concentrate on England’s primary knockout competition, one in which City have reached the last three finals but have only come out victorious in one of those years (2023).
With PSG to come in the Champions League in midweek, Arne Slot may feel his best chance of adding further silverware to his record at Liverpool rests on their performance here, so we’re expecting both sides to put out the best starting lineup they can following the international break.
Liverpool gave up a 1-0 lead in their last meeting, with City scoring twice in the dying minutes of February’s clash at Anfield. This could be another technical battle as both teams like to dominate the ball - back in the Premier League the two lead the way in the possession charts, with Liverpool just shading the average by a whisker (60.1% to City’s 60%).
Elsewhere in the last eight, Chelsea host Port Vale, the lowest ranked side left in the competition. The side currently sat bottom of League One managed to get past Sunderland in the last round.
Premier League leaders Arsenal travel to Southampton, with the second tier team on an unbeaten run that stretches to 14 games in all competitions.
Atlético Madrid vs. Barcelona
Fans of Atlético and Barcelona are gearing up for a run of three meetings in 10 days, with this league game between the two Spanish giants taking place before the first leg of their Champions League quarterfinal clash on Wednesday.
The sides are already well-versed with each other having met in the two-legged Copa Del Rey semifinals last month. Famously, Atleti raced into a four goal lead at half-time in the first fixture, and just hung on to prevail 4-3 on aggregate. Diego Simeone’s stated intention not to attack Barcelona appears to be a tactic that confounds Hansi Flick.
In the league however, Barcelona have been dominant all season. They hold a four point lead on Real Madrid, with Atleti a distant fourth heading in to the weekend. Barca lead the league for goals scored (2.7 goals per game), xG (73.2), shots on target per match (7.2), possession (68.7%), and passes (582.8). But they will come in to this game without Raphinha, with the Brazilian injured on international duty. When their talisman is missing from the lineup, Barcelona’s win ratio drops from 85% to just 58%.
The two great rivals in Northern France come together for a vitally important Derby on Saturday night. Lille sit fifth in the Ligue 1 table and will be looking not only for the points that will take them in to the Champions League places, but also to put a dent in Lens’ unlikely title credentials.
We’ve reached early April, crunchtime in the season, and Lens are still locked in, chasing PSG all the way at the top of the table. And while they may find themselves four points down on the Parisians by kick off, Pierre Sage will be confident that his side can pull off another huge result.
Lens travel to their regional rivals with 19 wins to their name this season, and they boast both the second best away record, the second best defence, and the second best goalscoring record in the division.
PSG lineup against midtable Toulouse on Friday night, with the league leaders still having a game in hand once the weekend round has been completed
Inter vs. Roma
Sixth placed Roma travel to San Siro for a date with the Serie A leaders on Sunday evening. For a side sitting pretty on a six point advantage in the table, Inter are actually on a shocking run of form. Since being knocked out of the Champions League by Bodø/Glimt, they’ve won just one of five games played across all competitions and scored just four goals. Their last three in the league have ended in defeat to rivals Milan, and disappointing 1-1 draws against Atalanta and struggling Fiorentina.
In contrast, Roma won last time out, and have conceded one less goal than Inter (23 to 24), despite the leaders having kept more clean sheets (15 to 13).
Four of the last five meetings between these two sides have finished with a 1-0 scoreline, with Roma’s only win in that run of games coming in last season’s corresponding fixture.
It’s been barely five months since the viral moment that took the Canadian Premier League to a global audience, with the final of the 2025 season played out at -8C temperature, in blizzard conditions (above left), and lit up by the ‘icicle kick’ scored by Atlético Ottowa’s David Rodríguez.
Now, with new branding and a refreshed set of teams, the CPL is back for the 2026 season, the eighth to be played in the league’s short history. And there’s also new innovation on the way, with Arsene Wenger’s proposed changes to the offside rule getting a ground-breaking first trial in the league. Players will only be adjudged to be offside if there is clear daylight between them and the last defender.
In terms of franchises, the league remains limited to eight sides, with Valour FC having folded, and York United renamed as Inter Toronto. Valour’s replacements are Supra du Quebéc (above right), a newly formed side named in honour of a Quebéc side that featured in an earlier incarnation of the top Canadian league.
Supra will be rather unique in the league as they have committed to an Athletic Club-style rule that will see only players born in Quebéc contracted to the club. Supra sit out the first weekend of action, but get underway against 2021 champions Pacific FC on Matchday 2.
EFL League Two leaders Bromley are more than a decade older than the two professional clubs closest to them in South East London, Crystal Palace and Charlton Athletic, but until just over a decade ago, they’d never even played in a national division.
Founder members of the Southern League in 1894, Bromley didn’t even venture to the north of England with regularity until the 2015/16 season – when they got their first taste of the National League, having been promoted as National League South champions.
The Ravens finished a very creditable 14th that campaign and went on to record top-half finishes in seven of the next eight seasons, culminating with a third-placed finish in 2023/24 – and subsequent promotion via the play-offs to reach the EFL for the first time in their history, becoming the 145th club to play League football.
Twelve months later, they fell only four points short of a League Two play-off berth at the first attempt; now, they’re on course to bypass the play-offs altogether. Andy Woodman’s side just lost for the first time in 22 games and boast the only unbeaten home league record in England’s top four divisions this term. With six matches to go, promotion is within their grasp – and so is the title.
“When we go up,” says Machel St Patrick Hewitt of independent site From Bromley with Love, speaking ahead of the Ravens’ surprise 2-1 defeat to Barrow, “Andy’s going to – and rightly so – get all the plaudits.”
Machel makes a point of looking ahead to when Bromley go up and not if – such has been the optimism instilled in the club not just by Woodman but by his predecessors in the dugout and those behind the scenes.
A selection of long reads published in the app over the last week…
Didier Deschamps has a stacked forward line and tough decisions to make when it comes to naming his first choice XI at the World Cup. But one name on the teamsheet could be Hugo Ekitike due to his ability to play on the left or through the middle, his relationship with Kylian Mbappé, and his strong showing during the international break.
Last week, we spoke to the young Ghananian midfielder who is enjoying a breakout season with Nordsjælland in the Danish Superliga, and the coaches who brought him through the Right to Dream academy system.
Sticking with Danish football, we took a long look at the problems faced at the country’s most successful club, with FC København currently enduring their worst ever season and stuck in the bottom half of the table following the league split for the second stage of the campaign.
If you scratch the surface in the Catalan capital, you’ll find there’s more to life than just Barcelona and Espanyol. Fans are getting their football fix at Sant Andreu, a proud club with a unique history (they were once saved by Salvador Dalí!), who find themselves on course for promotion from Spain’s fourth tier.
You’ve all heard of Expected Goals (xG) and Expected Goals Against (xGA), but have you dived in to the ‘deep stat’ conspiracies of Expected Points (xPTS)!?
In every league where we have the required data, we assess the chances created and faced in each game, and build an alternative table based on the points each team should/could have won according to the underlying numbers. And this can have some interesting results - check out LaLiga where, in this alternative universe, Real Madrid are leading the way instead of eternal rivals Barcelona!
To find xG tables in the app itself, head to the Table tab on any league profile and use the drop down menu to chance the view from ‘Overall’ to ‘xG.’
Pro Tip: Click on any of the matches below, then tap the star in the right hand side of the match page to add them to your Following section.
Friday: We’ve already mentioned the most high profile game of the night - PSG’s clash with Toulouse. Elsewhere, there’s a full programme in the EFL, with Coventry City vs. Derby County and Middlesbrough vs. Millwall two highlights from the Championship. Bromley, who we featured heavily above, go to Barnet in League Two.
Saturday: Ahead of Barcelona’s trip to Atlético Madrid, Real Madrid can close the gap to the leaders when they face Mallorca. In the Bundesliga, Bayern go to Freiburg, and third meets second as Stuttgart host Dortmund. Trabzonspor vs. Galatasaray is third vs. first in the Turkish SüperLig, rivals Basel and Young Boys face off in Switzerland, and in MLS, Inter Miami play the inaugural game (vs. Austin) at their purpose built new 26,700 capacity stadium, named errrrr… Nu Stadium.
Sunday: We’ll be keeping one eye on the Scottish title race as leaders Hearts play Livingston. The top two clash in Austria - Rapid vs. Sturm Graz. Monaco vs. Marseille is the big game in Ligue 1, while West Ham and Leeds United round off the FA Cup quarterfinals.
